"Yes, yes."
She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought to the contingent lunch.
"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought. "But, I say, I did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing. He would have laughed much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an unreasonable accident befallen him.
So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was well pleased with herself. Her indignation had responded very satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible. A patient lover must be a most valuable safety-valve. And although Eugene was not the most patient of his kind, Claudia did not think that she had put more upon him than he was able to bear—certainly not more than he deserved to bear. She would have dearly loved the luxury of refusing him, and although she had not been able to make up her mind to this extreme measure, she had, at least, succeeded in infusing a spice of difficulty into his wooing. She was so content with the aspect of affairs in this direction that it did not long detain her thoughts, and she found herself pondering more on the disclosure Eugene had made of Stafford's feelings than on his revelation of his own. It is difficult, without the aid of subtle distinctions, to say exactly what degree of surprise she felt at the news. She must, no doubt, have seen that Stafford was greatly attracted to her, and probably she would have felt that the description of his state of mind as that of a man in love only erred to the extent that a general description must err when applied to a particular case. But she was both surprised and disturbed at hearing that Stafford intended to act upon his feelings, and the very fact of her power having overcome him did him evil service in her thoughts. The secret of his charm for her lay exactly in the attitude of renunciation that he was now abandoning. She had been half inclined to fall in love with him just because there was no question of his falling in love with her. Her feelings toward Eugene, which lay deeper than she confessed, had prevented her actually losing her heart, or doing more than contemplate the picture of her romantic passion, banned by all manner of awful sanctions, as a not uninteresting possibility. By abandoning his position Stafford abandoned one great source of strength. On the other hand, he no doubt gained something. Claudia was not insensible to that aspect of the case which Ayre had apprehended would influence her so powerfully. She did perceive the halo of romance; and the idea of an Ajax defying heavenly lightning for her sake had its attractiveness. But Ayre reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him, he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss to appreciate the force which the same vow exercised over Claudia. Stafford himself had strengthened this feeling in her. Although the subject of celibacy, and celibacy by oath, had not been discussed openly between them, yet in their numerous conversations Stafford had not failed to respond to her sympathetic invitations so far as to give himself full liberty in descanting on the excellences of the life he had chosen for himself. Every word he had spoken in its praise now rose to condemn its betrayal. And Claudia, who had been brought up in entire removal from the spirit which made Ayre and Eugene treat Stafford's vow as one of the picturesque indiscretions of devotion, was unable to look upon the breaking of it in any other light than that of a falsehood and an act of treachery. Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them. This much of genuine disapproval of Stafford's conduct she undoubtedly felt; and there it would be pleasant to leave the matter. But in the commanding interest of truth it must be added that this genuine disapproval was, unconsciously perhaps to herself, strengthened by more mundane feelings, which would, if analyzed, have been resolved into a sense of resentment against Stafford. He had come to her, as it were, under false pretenses. Relying on his peculiar position, she had allowed herself, without scruple, a freedom and expansion in her relations toward him that she would have condemned, though perhaps not abstained from, had he stood exactly where other men stood; and she felt that, if charged with encouraging him and fostering a delusion in his mind, her defense, though in reality a good one, was not one which the world would accept as justifying her. She could not openly plead that she had flirted with him, because she had never thought he would flirt with her; or allowed him to believe she entertained a deeper regard for him than she did because he could be supposed to feel none for her. Yet that was the truth; and perhaps it was a good defense. And Claudia was resentful because she could not defend herself by using it, and her resentment settled upon the ultimate cause of her perplexities.
When Eugene got back to Territon Park he was received by the brothers with unaffected interest. They were passing the morning in an exhaustive medical inspection of the dogs, but they left even this engrossing occupation, and sauntered out to meet him.
"Well, what luck?" asked Rickmansworth.
"The debate is adjourned," answered Eugene.
"Did Clau make herself agreeable?"
"Well, no; in fact she made herself as disagreeable as she knew how."
"Raised Cain, did she?" inquired Bob sympathetically.